Quick Pitch: FastPencil makes the book-writing process painless - from concept to printed book or e-book.
Genius Idea: On top of writing and editing stories for Mashable, I'm also an author - specifically, I finished my first novel, a 130,000 word sci-fi novel, several months ago and am in editing. But I've quickly learned that writing is often not the tough part of getting a book out - it's the publishing part! Big publishers are notoriously tough to sell, and self-publishing can be a painful odyssey without the right tools.
FastPencil claims to be the right tool for self-publishing, though. The goal, of course, is to let any aspiring author to get their work published, in either e-book or printed form. It not only touts a set of tools for getting a book out into the hands of readers, but it also promotes a concept called "Guided Collaboration," which utilizes the FastPencil community to provide feedback and improvements on your work. The site can even help you come up with a book idea.
The first step, after registration, is to create a project - anything from a 10-chapter novel to turning your blog into a book is available. You can write, you can format text, you can add images, and you can track things like revisions and word count. There're also references on hand (i.e. Dictionary, Wikipedia). The interface makes it a bit easier to manage than a simple word doc, although you don't have as much control.
When you're ready to publish, it goes through a long list of features and settings you can control, including legal considerations, your ISBN (the book number), the covers, the size and templates, the spine, and even the price. This is a detailed amount of control that any self-publishing author requires.
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